


The Repeating Habits of Scars

by uragani



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: AU, Angst, Character Death, Gen, Groundhog Day AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 22:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7987735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uragani/pseuds/uragani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yamamoto's chin scar, how to. How it originally happened, how it happened in a few other universes, and how Gokudera solves the problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Repeating Habits of Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, this was posted on Dreamwidth June 11th, 2011. I'm just porting it over here, because that site is a relic and no one visits it.

The first time it happens Gokudera and Yamamoto stop in the middle of a heated battle and stare at each other in shock, blood dripping along Yamamoto's chin. Yamamoto reaches up and touches it and Gokudera looks to Tsuna before the silver haired boy simply crumples to the floor blank eyed. Yamamoto takes the rest of the enemies out like they were paper to get to him before they do. Tsuna helps, and they float away as ashes on the wind. They don't get their hurting storm to talk for hours, and when he finally makes a noise, it's a sob. Yamamoto stays up all night trying to hide the scar in the works, to get it healed. His eyes reflect back in the bathroom mirror, filled with guilt and reluctance to see out this trial. Tsuna stays up all night with Gokudera, and it's like Tsuna has died all over again when they all realize what it means. 

They're headed towards the same future again, and they know it. 

The second time it happens, Gokudera remembers a fragment of it happening before, but it doesn't stop him from tearing through the room to grab Yamamoto's chin and scream in his face for being so stupid. The memory doesn't help the poor stunned swordman's stumble backwards into a chair with blood flying up from the force, nor Tsuna trying to stop Gokudera's yelling long enough for the words to be words again. When he finally makes sense, the fire has run out of Gokudera's words and the others freeze in realization of what it means. They all curl up together in the library, hiding away. It rains all night, and morning looks like a sick ghost, and they feel broken when they know nothing is going as they planned. Tsuna doesn't want to die, and his guardians fight to tell him it'll be okay against the falling of their own hearts and hopes. Tsuna doesn't believe either of them. 

Years later it turns out he was right, and the two remaining hearts curl up in the same chair together and mourn.

The third time it happens, Gokudera is cooking. There's a yelp from the back room, and Gokudera drops everything to go see what's happening. He notes Tsuna's eyes are wet as Yamamoto catches sight of himself in a mirror, blood dripping down his chin from the broken light bulb he's holding in his hand. The roast burns, and the fire alarm is the only thing that saves them from burning the house down. Gokudera beats Shamal into stitching up Yamamoto's chin, and the scar is almost invisible, almost a lie. They all know it's still there. Whenever the light or their fingers catch it, their hearts break a little more. A few years later, Tsuna dies, just as Gokudera saw it in the shadow of the blood drops. He's getting used to it. His tears don't burn nearly as much, and the funeral is the shortest he can remember.

The fourth time, Hibari's normally placid look goes darker than they've ever seen before. His tonfas lower, and Yamamoto regrets being a second too late to catch it on the back of his blade because he's worried about Hibari, not himself. Before Gokudera can even start yelling the dark haired boy is running like a deer. The first time they've ever seen him do it, trying to hide his mistake by pretending he wasn't there. Hibari disappears for good, and they don't see him in time for the next battle, and more of them than ever die. Tsuna goes first, in a blaze of glory ripped out of his hands and eyes. Helped along by bombs Gokudera didn't know he'd taken. Gokudera watches dully as Ryohei is struck down from behind, and all he can think of as he sees them dying, crippled badly enough he can't help at all, was that this felt awfully familiar. Yamamoto goes down, throat slashed, looking at him with such regret like he'd caused everything just by that missing block. His lips form an apology for him alone. 

Then the world swallows itself, and darkness takes over and he doesn't open his eyes again.

The fifth, Gokudera had only meant to slap him for some meaningless comment and his fingernail had caught on the tender skin. It's especially bad this time, he's the one who did it, he remembers all the times before. He breaks down terrible and finds he hates himself for being so weak about it, about everything. Yamamoto holds him close and rocks him silently for hours before anyone else finds them curled up crying in the darkness. When they do, it's Ryohei with the news of the tenth's death in the battlefield, they didn't even realize he'd tried to take them on alone. The messenger joins them, and they all deal with the grief together, faces buried, clinging for comfort, hunting for a way out. Gokudera wishes things were different, as he falls asleep in a tangle of misery-leaden limbs, with no future to look forwards to. He dies in the next battle, because he doesn't have enough reason to get out of the way. Yamamoto follows him, after everything and everyone in the area dies at the edge of his blade. Ryohei takes over the family, and nothing is ever the same. 

The Vongola family dissolves, and the world dips into darkness without the light to show them the way out.

The sixth time it happens, Yamamoto finds his father dead, and the men who did it don't live to see the street outside. Gokudera barely catches him in time as he comes out of the door, carrying the crumpled body of the man he loved so much, chin dripping. Gokudera doesn't try to help him, just leads him to Tsuna, where Yamamoto puts his father's body at his don's feet head bowed and wet with blood that isn't his. Tsunayoshi cries for him, because Yamamoto's eyes are dry. Gokudera doesn't realize what the swordsman has planned, and by the time he knows he's seen that look in his eyes before, it's too late. Gokudera goes to two funerals in rapid succession, and the third nearly kills him. Byakuran takes him, and he lets him break his mind, anything to escape the pain. The rest of his family become memories, one by one, by his own hands. All he can hear is the white haired man's laughter, and he knows next time he'll do better. 

He has to.

The seventh time it almost happens, a thunder flame laced arrow just missing Yamamoto's chin in a fight, Gokudera comes up with a plan while they go into a frenzy to protect him. That night he grabs Yamamoto's chin in full view of Tsuna, hauls out a knife and rips open the opposite side of his chin. The wrong side. Too deep, too much, and far longer than Yamamoto should have had. Just to make sure. Tsuna screams at first, but Yamamoto realizes what's different. Hands shaking, Gokudera collapses against him and cries. This time tears of relief, and Tsuna joins them. They don't know if it'll work and it's tense for years. But no one dies this time, no one gets as hurt as they had. Everything works out, and they never leave each other's sides without coming home again. Gokudera's favorite place to touch him now is the scar, and Tsunayoshi smiles whenever it catches his eye, even after a long day of talks. 

They're finally happy, they're finally free.


End file.
